by Zac Porter
The bells of Sacred Heart let me know it’s noon. Time to start walking. There’s a memorial viewing for my sister today at Anton’s funeral chapel. Anton’s has been in the same family for a century. I go out. It’s late November, the twenty-first. A cloudless day and the light blisters this landscape. Sacred Heart’s red spire has a gold cross that catches light, casting the blistering beams down; it didn’t used to be like this; ten years back there might’ve been snow about now. The bells are meant to be a call to the Lord’s prayer; deliver us from evil, deliver me from this stinging light; cover me in prayersound. I cut down an alley to get on the main drag. I’m wearing my one suit; it’s gray and doesn’t fit me well. I know I’ll sweat through it; I am sweating through it. Black tie is too tight. I come up on the seven-eleven; gas is down three cents, that’s good. A couple minutes behind but I need smokes. I go in.
There’s trouble, Billy says.
Billy likes to call me trouble. I don’t know why. Don’t mind, better than nothing. He wears thick rectangular glasses that make his eyes bulge with a belly that sneaks out the bottom of his black 7-Eleven polo, teasing a thick happy trail.
No trouble here, I say. Two packs of yellow American Spirits Billy.
He walks over to grab them and comes back to the counter.
What you all dressed up for? he says.
A funeral.
I’m sorry to hear about that, he says flatly.
Don’t worry about it.
I pay for the cigarettes and step out to smoke one. The light touches my hands; blistering; cloudless. When I’m done I walk to the chapel.
Mr. Anton greets me at the door.
Ezra, he says.
I shake his hand, following him inside. We are in the back of the chapel. A refrigerator and coffee machine there that say early 2000s. Proof that time’s stopped here. We walk through a white receiving room; on the wall, there is a line of framed pictures—former funeral directors, forefathers. When’s his picture going up? He’s more than earned it. Deserves a nice golden gilded frame.
She’s over here, he says.
Mr. Anton leads me across the red carpet. We stop. The viewing room is circular, with the casket centered in the back. It’s open and I see the shape of her body. To the left: flowers. Pink and white roses, in the shape of a heart. I paid for the arrangement and rented the mahogany casket. There’s a nice painting of the Ohio Valley on the wall showing the early industrial days, late eighteen or early nineteen hundreds. Everything looks how it should look for a funeral.
The flowers are beautiful, I say.
They were a great choice, he says.
Silence. We stand there, at the edge of the room. Around the bottom edge the casket is inlaid with arabesques; they swirl, and I see the shapes of leaves, falling. We walk over to Lisa. Wrinkles at the edges of her eyes. Crow’s feet. How old was she, forty-seven? Twenty years older than me. Must be forty-seven. Young for a heart attack. Her hands are gently folded over one another. I’m used to casket hands being shriveled and bony, but her hands are full like they might twitch. Her nails are a midnight blue, matching an elegant dress; there’s a distant pain from her full hands.
I’ll give you a moment, Mr. Anton says, retreating.
His steps are soft on the carpet soft like those falling leaves. I put my hands on the casket, then I put my hand on hers. We rarely spoke. Why are families so difficult?
Our parents passed years back; one after another. Our mom of COVID; our dad of ammonia and fluid; but I like to think it was heartache; without her, waiting to die, covered in a cloak of hopelessness it seemed. cover me in prayersound Then sickness. Lisa came to help me. She took what she wanted and put their house on the market and that was the last I saw her.
I remember she called during the East Palestine train derailment, about twenty miles north of here February 23’. It was feared that whatever was in the train cars entered our water-supply. No question. Everyone knew with all the fish belly-up in the creeks and in the river. I got bottled water from the city-building for a few days. Two twenty-four packs at a time and that’s what I had to cook to shower and to drink. Could see the smoke from town. A black pillar. There were a lot of stories at that time; theories; conspiracies; information; posts; announcements; updates; but it was all noise, static. Some had value and some didn’t. Or: it’s better to say they had their limitations. The stories had a way of covering up the reality—like a story could be the graveclothes for something real; the realness of the smoke; the realness of a dark feeling that another thing came to pass to sour the air and sour the soil; the water too. I heard some responders didn’t have any PPE. They didn’t completely know what was in the train until afterwards; those people had vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol, ethylhexyl acrylate, butyl acrylate, and isobutylene all over them. They decided to burn the cars. A controlled burn to prevent a catastrophic explosion, to “get out in front of it,” releasing millions of pounds of vinyl chloride through black fire. We were openly exposed to chemicals; chemicals in my body now; chemicals that are rusting me. No story could hide that the train cars, at bottom, were just something that’s been asked of this place, something that we’ve provided, all for it to become a heaviness, like every industry in this valley, products passing through, abandonment, decline heavy enough to fracture, only for it all to erupt out, to be as real as this air in my lungs. It came out after the burns that an explosion might have been an exaggeration; the train cars were sitting nice and cool between sixty and seventy degrees, a room temperature glass of water; Lisa wanted to know if I was all right and I told her I was fine. the graveclothes for something real
I look into her face. My hands are on her hands, but we’re strangers. Her cheekbones are high, her nose thin, and her brown hair is shoulder-length. Forty-seven is young for a heart attack. I stand there, thinking about Mr. Anton’s family. An unbroken line. Continuity. Then I think about my sister. No continuity. Absence. She looks gracious and beautiful in the elegant blue dress. Her eyes are closed. “At peace” in the way people are in a casket. Mr. Anton gave her a slight smile that suggests something about a better place.
***
People start to arrive.
There are not many. Lisa has lived in New York for a while and hasn’t been around. People tend to grow up here, leave here, then have their final rest here. Sad that that’s how it is. I see my friend George, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Couldn’t even throw on a tie for a funeral, like this is the trailer park. I’ll have to get him a tuxedo shirt. I’m standing by the coffin upright with my hand over my wrist and he comes over to me.
Sorry about how I’m dressed, he says. I have to work after this.
He works down at the pizza shop.
That’s all right, I say. Thanks for coming.
We shake hands, close for a moment; he gives me two heavy pats on the back and goes past me. I glance at Lisa. We have similar faces; it’s obvious, embarrassing almost; our high cheekbones; our hair; our hands. Lisa’s old friend Sherri is standing by the coffin. She’s wearing a black pantsuit and her make up is on heavy; the only reason I know they were friends is because I remember a framed picture of them, on their high school graduation day, in our parents’ living room. I see Sherri at the VFW from time to time. Always asked after Lisa.
How you holdin’ up big guy?
I’m fine.
Yeah?
Yeah, I’m all right.
I can’t believe it. Forty-seven. A heart attack?
Yeah.
She stands there for a moment. What does she want me to say? Then comes in for a hug and squeezes me. Tightly.
Give me a call if you need anything, she says.
She walks out. More people trickle in. I know these faces. I doubt they know Lisa’s, but it doesn’t matter, not really; they’ve come out to show they know my face and they see me and think it must be hard and they’ve come out to show me I’m not alone—but I am I’m alone, standing in a shadow and the only light in this room is falling on her on her face—why are families so hard? I don’t know why but I’m worrying if my time off will be approved. I shake a lot of hands. I can’t think of anything less meaningful than work. I’m over at Walmart. Nothing on top of nothing. A stasis. Mr. Anton checks in.
Need a coffee? Anything?
No, I say.
In an hour, the chapel has thinned out, and it’s just me and Mr. Anton. I’m still standing by the coffin. He comes over, putting a hand on me.
Why don’t you go home, I can handle the rest.
***
Two days later, I get a call from Mr. Anton. Her ashes are ready. In favor of cremation, Lisa’s will cited, “the amount of casket wood used in a year is the equivalent of four-million acres, an area the size of Lake Ontario.”
This time I drive down, meeting him in the lobby.
Ezra, he says.
Like two days ago. I don’t say anything and we walk to the viewing room.
You stay here.
The room is different; empty; dark; fully encircled by shadow. A couple of lights come on. He returns, wearing white gloves, holding Lisa’s ashes. I let him pick out the urn; I didn’t know what way to take it. Better to leave it in his capable hands.
Here she is, he says.
It’s rectangular, made of lightly stained poplar wood, with a black lid. Dignified. He’s done a better job than I would have.
I’ve carried out her wishes to the best of my ability, he says.
She’s in there? I ask.
Her physical remains. But her soul has gone on.
He crosses himself. Her soul. bells of the sacred heart That’s right, Anton’s a Catholic. I see the shape of rosary beads underneath his white shirt. His face shows the slightest strain, is that doubt, or compassion?
I hope you’re right, I say.
He glances at me. Then back to business. He holds the urn in front of him. Wipes it with his gloved hand. Not a speck.
Lisa, he says, passing her over.
In my arms she weighs like I don’t know what except she’s heavy; spotless and heavy. I thank Mr. Anton and head out, putting Lisa in the passenger seat of my truck.
***
I go south on Rt. 2 and come up on Gestalt Oil; the refinery is a small city, a small city in glistening chrome, with steel cylindrical towers, rising, hissing, connected by a labyrinth of steel vents and shafts, now a part of the landscape, built over it, grown out of it, a reflection of us; this industrial Ohio River Valley; the small office in front is dwarfed and its two lights struggle to push past the deep shadow of the refinery. The pipeline emerges from somewhere in the heart of the plant; it stands out, concrete against steel, crawling out of that steel, segment by segment, fixed along the riverbank, heading east, along the river, on to the polymer plant, and I’m past it, driving through this dead countryside.
***
I pull off Rt. 2 onto a gravel road; it curls back like a horseshoe, leading to a small electrical station where I park the truck. I grab Lisa and get out; she’s heavy in my arms. The river is close; on the other side is a kind of factory, rusted through and through; they see me and think it must be hard and they’ve come out to show me i’m not alone, but i am i’m alone it’s a smear of orange and deep browns that the foothills have no trouble swallowing. I see a deer trail that looks like it will take me out on the water. I start towards it. The trail is thick with Japanese knotweed and I crouch under it, holding her close; she’s still so heavy, even heavier while I’m like this; a few more paces and it thins out. I see the brown water clearly and there are a few yellow bricks scattered around. Why are families so hard? no continuity, absence I put my hand on a locust tree, to rest for a moment; how did we become this? Strangers? Diverged? she wanted to know if i was all right and i told her i was fine The water laps on the rocks. Strange how we just slip past one another like that; strangers; the water slips on the rocks with a constant cadence. I walk along the shore; it hasn’t rained in some time, and the water is low enough that there’s a sandbar I can walk out on. I go ahead, and my shoes get a little wet. I hold her especially tight now.
It’s a poor day for spreading ashes; the weather changed since the viewing; it’s chilly and gray, the wind uneven; the water laps here like it does back there. Steady. Always steady. I look at the hills on the other side of the river, past that factory; those foothills over there have skeletons and I get a feeling the river is talking to me; whispering; whispering soft river secrets. cover me in prayersound Those foothills don’t talk. Is this grief? If it is, it’s cold and unfamiliar and cuts like this wind. I take the lid off Lisa’s urn, setting it on the sand. I feel the need to say something, to eulogize.
We’re here, I say, faltering.
A breeze kicks up, cutting through my jacket. is this grief
I just wanted to, I start, again, but again, I falter, shivering with life.
I stand there, peering at the factory, at the rust, and it’s like I’m looking through it, past the decay, into a skeleton.
There’s nothing I can say.
I spread her.
Lisa, as a pile of ashes, sits on top of the water, flowing away, folding into oblivion.
______
Zac Porter is a writer from Chester, West Virginia. He is the author of Syntax (Pig Roast Publishing), and In my Arms (Searing Clarity). In 2025, he received his MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. These are the first ten pages of his unpublished novella, Oxidized.
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